re: The Transfer Portal Thread. Julian Sayin to Ohio St. Zalance Heard to Tenn

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How will Howard be eligible? He transferred last year, he’s only a sophomore.

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Howard is a senior and has never transferred. Has COVID year.

Would assume Humphries is taking his spot

He wants to get paid like his new teammates are. No way Ole Miss lets him leave

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No way Ole Miss lets him leave

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He’s 100% leaving.

Nic Scourton to A&M

Just like free agency in sports it’s going to be interesting following the kids who over value themselves in the portal and end up somewhere they maybe don’t want to be. Unlike pro sports it isn’t truly life changing money and can have some potentially bad effects on their draft stock (where they would earn life changing money). I guess Judkins is gone and OM reallocated that money? The RB devaluation is about to trickle down to college

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he wants $1M per. That’s insane, if true.

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Welcome to the world of professional athletes wearing college names on their uniforms.

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He’s 100% leaving.

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Probably. This was the inevitable yang to to the yin of their strategy of throwing so much money at portal guys like a poster mentioned above. It would happen anywhere, but it's hard enough to convince top high school recruits to go to Oxford and Ole Miss over the bigger power schools they're surrounded by.

But if guys sign and go there and work their asses off for a couple of years, even if they're starting and the incoming portal guys aren't coming in to take their particular spots, if they're seeing guys who committed to and played at other schools come in making hundreds of thousands of dollars--or more--while they're "just" getting $40-$50k, it's gonna make them feel a certain way.

Now, with the guys Lane landed in the portal this year, Dart coming back, their relatively easy schedule, and the expanded playoff next year, it's probably still worth it to go all in. Judkins is really good, but I'm sure they have depth at the RB position and that tradeoff is almost definitely worth it. This year. I don't think it's sustainable, though.

The more transfers you bring in and the NIL money you give them is going to have a direct impact on high school recruiting. You'll either lose out on guys altogether or have to start paying them more money up front. And this is for every school. Like I said, Lane's strategy may work for '24. But he--and every other HC in CFB--are going to have to find the right balance over the long-term. Right not they're all trying to navigate uncharted waters.

As a fan of LSU, I personally like Brian Kelly's long-term strategy. He wants to build through the high school ranks and portal guys who have ties to Louisiana and multiple years of eligibility. I think he likes having older teams made up mostly of guys who have been developed, grew up the culture he's building, and have played together. Not that he won't play freshmen studs or grab a portal stud that fills a need. But his thinking is that Louisiana and the surrounding areas LSU has recruited well in the past is talent-rich enough to build a championship program. AND, their ties to Louisiana and LSU will help keep them there.

They seem to be more focused on retaining current players that they've developed and grew up in the culture than getting a bunch of guys to come in who were developed and grew up elsewhere. Because as talented as they may be, you never know exactly what you're getting. We saw that up-close this year with the almost complete whiffing LSU did with their defensive portal additions. And it seems to be working because we haven't had anybody leave through the portal that we really wanted to keep. I'm sure they wanted to keep Heard, but not at whatever price he was asking for. He wasn't guaranteed to start and that's a position we have a lot of depth at.

But, even though that strategy sounds logical and appears to be working, the sample size is still too small to really know if it will work long-term. And even if it does for LSU, not every school has the fertile recruiting ground without another in-state P5 school. Not every school has produced Jayden Daniels, Malik Nabers, Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson, and Jamar Chase in the past 5 years. Bama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, etc...can do the same. But most schools will have to find the right balance that's specific to their particular situation. Will be interesting see how it all plays out in the incoming years.